Saratov and Wolgadeutsche or Russlanddeutsche

I'm sitting here sifting through the pictures that we took from Saratov trying to gather my feelings. Visiting Saratov was two fold, hard and totally powerful. It has definitely given our Russian experience a more well rounded point of view. 

I don't know how much history you want, but basically for as long as I can remember, I've been told I'm a German from Russia. A traveling people, mostly farmers, that was invited to Russia  by Catherine the Great, a German princess that married another German royalty guy that ended up ruling Russia. (Politics have always been rich, weird and fucked up huh?) Anyway, my fathers people were some of the people that decided to move from Germany to Russia. 200 years later at the turn of the century, Germany was doing fucked up things and going to war, so all of the Germans in Russia were no longer welcome. Those who had not already left were either kicked out and/or killed. Thankfully for my family, my great-grandparents left Russia a year before that all started to happen, in 1913. (Here is a link to more detailed history Volga_Germans and Germans_from_Russia)

When Shai and I decided to come to Russia (as I mentioned before, the somewhat quick and shortsighted but good decision) it wasn't specifically to come to Saratov to be on the land some of family had lived. It was to travel, see a new places, actually experience winter, and step out of the comfort of being a child of the empire (not that one can fully step out of that, but it makes being a child of the empire so evident in ways we forget in our everyday lives). As time grew closer to us leaving for Russia, the fact there was a family connection specifically tied to my dad, became a heavy driving force for me. 

After my dad died in 2011, I started a ritual for both myself and in honor of my dad who dreamed of traveling the world. The ritual loosely consists of bringing some of his ashes with me to every country I visit and spending a day/ afternoon honoring him and doing things and going places I think he would have specifically liked to go. Which is pretty easy, he was so easy going that as long as I spend a couple of hours in a coffee shop watching and talking to people around me, everything else is just cream and cherries. I was excited for the opportunity to visit a place that I have connected as a part of my history and identity. With that excitement I was also sad that my dad was never able to see the land that he had even more connection and history with. After the plane tickets and visa's were bought I hunkered down to track down family that could tell me a little more about family's history. Saratov was the end result.

Upon first arrival to Saratov, I kept searching within myself for a connection. I  found myself cut off and unable to connect. I attribute some of that to culture shock and language barriers. So, I finally resigned myself to just staying open and absorb my surroundings and experiences. 

Our street

Shai and I ended up at a hotel (Saratov is too small of a town to have hostels) in what seemed to me the center of town, which not so surprising was in the middle of a couple blocks of commercial shops. Basically, we stayed in a mall.

Video store!

Abstract McDonalds

One of the ways I try to connect with a place I'm visiting (and lets be real, connect with anything and everyone in general) is through food. Shai and I set out for food the afternoon we landed.  Our first meal we ended up walking into a place that looked and functioned very similar to a cafeteria. As we have been doing the most of the time, we've been picking our food by picture or look because most menus aren't translated into English. So the cafeteria worked great. Looks yummy huh?

This ended up being liver I think. The potato was the best part of the meal for me.

More pictures from wondering around our neighborhood.

BR!

 Feeling like we struck out for lunch, we decided to go to dinner at the sushi place underneath our hotel for dinner...

Still Christmas everywhere!!

This, my friends, is pork and mayonaise

More mayo and cucumber

Needless to say, our sushi experience was nothing close to what we were used to. Different ingredients, different textures and flavors. We were both a little glarged out, and wasn't able to eat much of our sushi. I tried, believe me I tried really hard. We reverted to Americans, I'm embarrassed to say, and visited the abstract McDonalds to fill our bellies and cleanse our pallets. The amazing part is that the McDonalds wasn't "better" than the sushi we had for dinner. It was just familiar.

We had one full day in Saratov, and that was the day I set aside for my dad.  Elese and I did some intention setting for my dad's ritual. Without going into details; my ritual means spending a day for my dad, a period of time talking, thinking and holding space for him. Since the Wolgadeutsche (or Russlanddeutsche) is more of a regional area were the Germans lived, Elese and I decided that doing the ritual next to the Volga River seemed like a great space for it. The Volga River is huge and spans the entire S.E. region of Russia. So, on Wednesday January 8, 2014, Shai and I set out in search of the Volga river.

The next set of photos are our trek to find the river front....

 After probably a two hour walk/search, plus a couple of stops for coffee to warm our bones, we found the river. With the loving support of Shai, I was able to hold the sweet little ceremony/ritual that Elese and I brought together. I feel eternally grateful to have been able to be there. To have the privilege and gain the experience to visit a land that some of my people lived. To viscerally feel the cold. To feel the weight and loss of not being able to share it with my father, and yet still work towards healing and moving forward with life even though he is not a physical being in my life anymore. I feel grateful to have been able to have the loving relationship I had with my father, and still have with my blood family and my chosen family. Thank you and I love you.